The planning and analysis of a new group rapid transit system: the SkyCabs monobeam system in Auckland

This paper examines a case study of the SkyCabs system as a way to alleviate some of the traffic problems of Auckland, New Zealand. SkyCabs is an elevated two-way monobeam carrying light eight-seater cabs on tracks on each side of the beam, available on demand, providing fast, pollution-free, unimpeded travel above the footpath with panoramic views of the city. The aim of this study is to investigate the attractiveness of implementing the SkyCabs system to and from Auckland central business district (CBD) and Auckland international airport by examining four variables: different routes, different number of stops/stations, different passenger demand levels, and different number of cabs in the system. The analysis utilizes geographical information system and simulation tools for the various scenarios considered. The results show that it is possible to assess the cost–benefit of alternative routes in terms of those four variables and rate of return on investment.     

Modeling the interactions between car and bicycle in heterogeneous traffic

In this paper, a new cellular automata model is proposed to simulate the car and bicycle heterogeneous traffic on urban road. To capture the complex interactions between these two types of vehicles, a novel occupancy rule is adopted in the proposed model to consider the variable lateral distances of mixed vehicular traffic. Based on massive simulations, microscopic fundamental diagrams under different bicycle densities are devised. With these, the bicycle's spilling behavior is then investigated and discussed. In order to reflect the interference of a bicycle on a car, the interference transformation from friction state to block state is modeled explicitly. Finally, different simulation results under different occupancy rules indicate that the constant and fixed occupancy rule adopted in the previous studies might lead to overestimation of car flux in the heterogeneous traffic flows with different bicycle densities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

台北公共交通月及无车日活动回顾与展望

台北国际无车日自2002年起举办了5次,由最早的骑自行车活动扩大至包含“走路上学日”与“公共交通月”丰富多彩的系列活动,渐渐获得民众认同。无车日活动的目标是通过活动的倡导和社会参与来改变民众使用交通工具的行为,潜移默化的效应可促使形成可持续交通政策,当可持续交通政策与基础设施建设落实后又可具体改变交通环境,形成良性的循环机制。首先说明了“无车日”的由来,并回顾台北都会区过去5年来举行无车日系列活动的内容与经验,同时基于活动的发展与成果归纳出无车日活动的成功要素,最后提出未来活动将扩大举办的内容、方式与展望,以期能为其他城市作参考。     

Multi‐objective highway alignment optimization using a genetic algorithm

The available highway alignment optimization algorithms use the total cost as the objective function. This is a single objective optimization process. In this process, travel‐time, vehicle operation accident earthwork land acquisition and pavement construction costs are the basic components of the total cost. This single objective highway alignment optimization process has limited capability in handling the cost components separately. Moreover, this process cannot yield a set of alternative solutions from a single run. This paper presents a multi‐objective approach to overcome these shortcomings. Some of the cost components of highway alignments are conflicting in nature. Minimizing some of them will yield a straighter alignment; whereas, minimizing others would make the alignment circuitous. Therefore, the goal of the multiobjective optimization approach is to handle the trade‐off amongst the highway alignment design objectives and present a set of near optimal solutions. The highway alignment objectives, i.e., cost functions, are not continuous in nature. Hence, a special genetic algorithm based multi‐objective optimization algorithm is suggested The proposed methodology is demonstrated via a case study at the end.     

Bush-based sensitivity analysis for approximating subnetwork diversion

Subnetwork analysis is often used in traffic assignment problems to reduce the size of the network being analyzed, with a corresponding decrease in computation time. This is particularly important in network design, second-best pricing, or other bilevel problems in which many equilibrium runs must be solved as a subproblem to a master optimization program. A fixed trip table based on an equilibrium path flow solution is often used, but this ignores important attraction and diversion effects as drivers (globally) change routes in response to (local) subnetwork changes. This paper presents an approach for replacing a regional network with a smaller one, containing all of the subnetwork, and zones. Artificial arcs are created to represent “all paths” between each origin and subnetwork boundary node, under the assumption that the set of equilibrium routes does not change. The primary contribution of the paper is a procedure for estimating a cost function on these artificial arcs, using derivatives of the equilibrium travel times between the end nodes to create a Taylor series. A bush-based representation allows rapid calculation of these derivatives. Two methods for calculating these derivatives are presented, one based on network transformations and resembling techniques used in the analysis of resistive circuits, and another based on iterated solution of a nested set of linear equations. These methods are applied to two networks, one small and artificial, and the other a regional network representing the Austin, Texas metropolitan area. These demonstrations show substantial improvement in accuracy as compared to using a fixed table, and demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.     

Vulnerability analysis for large-scale and congested road networks with demand uncertainty

To assess the vulnerability of congested road networks, the commonly used full network scan approach is to evaluate all possible scenarios of link closure using a form of traffic assignment. This approach can be computationally burdensome and may not be viable for identifying the most critical links in large-scale networks. In this study, an “impact area” vulnerability analysis approach is proposed to evaluate the consequences of a link closure within its impact area instead of the whole network. The proposed approach can significantly reduce the search space for determining the most critical links in large-scale networks. In addition, a new vulnerability index is introduced to examine properly the consequences of a link closure. The effects of demand uncertainty and heterogeneous travellers’ risk-taking behaviour are explicitly considered. Numerical results for two different road networks show that in practice the proposed approach is more efficient than traditional full scan approach for identifying the same set of critical links. Numerical results also demonstrate that both stochastic demand and travellers’ risk-taking behaviour have significant impacts on network vulnerability analysis, especially under high network congestion and large demand variations. Ignoring their impacts can underestimate the consequences of link closures and misidentify the most critical links.     

CFD Analysis of Ship-to-Ship Hydrodynamic Interaction

A numerical study of ship-to-ship interaction forces is performed using a commercial CFD code, and the results are compared with experimental data and with the results of a panel method analysis. Two ship models have been used in the interaction forces analysis: a tug and a tanker, advancing parallel to each other with different lateral distances and two different values of the fluid depth. Computations are carried out with four different flow models: inviscid and viscous flow with the free surface modeled as a rigid wall and inviscid and viscous flow with the deformable free surface. A fair agreement was obtained with available experimental data and results obtained by panel method. The influence of viscosity in the computations is found to be comparatively weak, while the wavemaking effects may be important, at small magnitude of the horizontal clearance.     

Robust network pricing and system optimization under combined long-term stochasticity and elasticity of travel demand

Network pricing serves as an instrument for congestion management, however, agencies and planners often encounter problems of estimating appropriate toll prices. Tolls are commonly estimated for a single-point deterministic travel demand, which may lead to imperfect policy decisions due to inherent uncertainties in future travel demand. Previous research has addressed the issue of demand uncertainty in the pricing context, but the elastic nature of demand along with its uncertainty has not been explicitly considered. Similarly, interactions between elasticity and uncertainty of demand have not been characterized. This study addresses these gaps and proposes a framework to estimate nearest optimal first-best tolls under long-term stochasticity in elastic demand. We show first that the optimal tolls under the deterministic-elastic and stochastic-elastic demand cases coincide when cost and demand functions are linear, and the set of equilibrium paths is constant. These assumptions are restrictive, so three larger networks are considered numerically, and the subsequent pricing decisions are assessed. The results of the numerical experiments suggest that in many cases, optimal pricing decisions under the combined stochastic-elastic demand scenario resemble those when demand is known exactly. The applications in this study thus suggest that inclusion of demand elasticity offsets the need of considering future demand uncertainties for first-best congestion pricing frameworks.     

Effects of the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative on the wine import logistics of China

China’s Belt and Road (BR) initiative is expected to facilitate international trade between the countries involved. In this study, we review the special requirements of wine logistics and the market growth potential of wine consumption in China. A model minimizing generalized logistical costs is developed and applied to wine imports in China, so that the best candidate cities in which to locate transport gateways and distribution centers can be identified. Our analysis suggests that the most preferred gateways are Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong, which all have similar delivery costs. In comparison, Beijing and Chongqing have much higher delivery costs, mainly because they do not have good access to marine transport and/or efficient domestic distribution networks. For long-distance intercontinental transport of large volumes of wine, marine shipping remains the only viable delivery mode. However, wine distribution within China extensively uses air, road, and water transport. Therefore, cities with excellent multi-modal transport services are better positioned to become wine logistics gateways. Our study also highlights the importance of value-added services and good government support, which are important factors that influence distribution costs and quality.     

Back-Calculation of Ground Stress Field and Rockburst Analysis for Wunvfeng Tunnel北大核心CSCD

Studying the in-situ stress distribution at a tunnel site is very important to determine surrounding rock characteristics, the engineering design and the construction scheme. By using the multiple linear regression method based on the least square algorithm, the initial geostress field is analyzed and the corresponding regression coefficients are obtained. The ground stress obtained from the proposed back analysis is reasonable and can meet the demands of the engineering applications. From the rockburst risk level distribution diagram, it is speculated that the Wunvfeng tunnel is in the high filed stress area. Field monitoring should be strengthened and emergency plans should be made to cope with the rockburst risks during the construction process. © 2018, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.